NATCA-Insider Articles

Multi-Unit Collaboration Training Reaches New High
Thursday, October 18, 2012

Region X has successfully reached their own milestone in collaboration when they met for their first Multi-Unit collaboration training session at a directorate and regional level in Fort Worth, Texas, on Oct. 10 and 11.

"We've been working since early 2011 to get to this point of rolling out collaboration training for the Multi-Units," Region X Regional Vice President Mike MacDonald said. "We've had multiple meetings, over the past 18 months, trying to get to this point where we're finally training our non-ATO field people."

NATCA National Aircraft Certification Service (AIR) Representative Tomaso DiPaolo said these collaboration training sessions allow the agency to work in a proactive environment.

"Workgroups will deal with issues ranging from how we track daily work tasks or working together to develop a new computer system to track reports of broken aviation parts and determining what the safety impact is," said DiPaolo.

"While we've talked a lot about working on collaboration in other units, we haven't actually gotten to the point where we are able to exercise that collaborative approach in the field," said MacDonald. "We're finally able to introduce this for local issues."

NATCA’s National Collaboration Lead Russ Miller commented about, "Collaboration simply produces better solutions and more energized professionals. Getting it rolling out in the field is key Agency improvements."

"This is a cultural change," DiPaolo said. "We'll be able to take a fresh look at the world and think more in terms of how we can work better together to accomplish our common goal of continuing to have the safest NAS in the world."

Future collaboration training session locations have been set in Atlanta, Seattle, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C.